~ Leaving Melbourne for somewhere else.

The World Cup that was.

So the mighty Germans have done it again, and again and again. And why not? They are united, organised, efficient and they keep going like the Duracell Bunny. Well done and may the steins flow freely in Bavaria and elsewhere in strudel land.

There was so much I wanted to write about half an hour ago; sci-fi romance in Brasilia, the many challenges of being Clive Palmer’s tailor, the new season of Hemlock Grove and then some. I’ll start with the disgraceful showing of England in Brazil 2014. What were they thinking? They didn’t have a Jim Dandy chance in hell of winning the pub raffle let alone a game and it’s all pretty obvious really. They have the richest league in the world with all the best players and foreign managers that big money can buy and therein lies the problem: the English team is second rate and their management even worse. I reckon there’s gonna be a TED talk about it soon.

Australia did well despite not progressing and can hold their heads up high. They had unity and gusto in abundance, take note England. Did anybody even notice the Russians slink off to Moscow after barely getting their kit on? The African contingent tried valiantly before playing silly buggers over bonuses and fixing matches. Algeria may hold their heads high after donating their collective prize money($6M) to the poor bombarded Palestinians. They deserve the fair play award for that.

T’was good to see the Italians beat England and still go home along with the Spanish and Portuguese and did anybody miss them later on? No.

The US of A played well and were unlucky not to progress a little further. Ditto Mexico and Chile. Japan and South Korea slept through the alarm clock. France looked good but ran out of puff along with Switzerland. Uruguay lost their appetite and their bite but still showed the Poms a thing or two.

Costa Rica were the dahlings of the show and deserve everything that comes their way. Holland scored more goals than England have in donkey’s years.

The Brazilians had a nightmare and will need some serious group therapy to get over it all but at least Argentina didn’t win the final in the Maracana.

Argentina played well, Messi played better.

FIFA made a fortune, somebody made a fortune selling dodgy tickets for years. The media didn’t show any trouble on the streets. The whole show went smoothly despite the nay sayers predicting mass transport chaos, social unrest and concerns of stadia not being ready on time.

Roll on Russia 2018 which is bound to be interesting in so many ways considering all the shite going on there.